by Audie Murphy
“You damn clown,” I mutter. “Get moving.”
“I’m a dyin’ man. The bastards shot my back clean off. Go git the medics.”
I thrust my hand in his pack and draw forth the punctured can.
“There’s your back; and there’s your blood.”
He blinks incredulously and pulls out his plug of tobacco.
“Well, I’ll be a dirty name,” he says reflectively. “Who’d ever thought I could’ve been so mistook.”
One of our tanks has halted behind the stone wall on the opposite side of the railroad. It lowers its gun and begins pumping shells into the enemy-held houses. The Germans run from the buildings and scatter like frightened quail. As unemotionally as if we were shooting skeets, we pick them off with our guns. Then we close in.
I enter the first house with my finger on the trigger of a submachine gun. We take no chances; trust nothing. I start at the sight of a rifle barrel sticking through a door. A footstep sounds. Firing a short burst through the door, I kick it open.
In the room I find Snuffy. The natural sallowness of his face has paled to a corpse-white. I have missed killing him only by accident.
“Why didn’t you holler?” I ask. “I thought you were a damned kraut.”
“Was that you ’at far-ed?”
“It was.”
He hurls his helmet wrathfully to the floor.
“Which side are you on?” he asks.
“What did you expect me to do? Knock or ring a bell?”
“I quit. When your own pal tries to slaughter you, it’s time to quit. You got anything to eat?”
“How’d you like some beans?”
“Whyn’t you fergit that?” he asks with a sheepish grin. “I knocked over a kraut after you left me. And I hope it was ’at bastard ’at shot up my beans.”
“Find him sleeping?”
“What you mean, sleepin’?”
“For you to hit him, he’d either have to be dead or sleeping.”
“Nosir. This’n was runnin’ like a scared turkey. I ups with my heater and lets him have it right in the fanny. Sure cure for the constipation. What you got to eat?”
I find a fruit bar and some dog biscuits in my knapsack.
Snuffy glares at the rations resignedly. “Hot damn army grub. Biscuits break your teeth off. Fruit bar makes ‘em ache. Pass ’em over.”
With the hard crust of his defenses broken, the enemy begins a withdrawal. Though reeling like a punch-drunk fighter, he pounds us with cannon and harasses us with small arms. We are deathly tired, but we must keep hitting the Germans while they are still off-balance.
In a forest we stop to reorganize our forces. The area has been recently occupied by the krauts. Their foxholes pit the earth; and the ground is littered with debris and abandoned equipment. Our rapid advance has taken us temporarily beyond the reach of our supply lines. Our stomachs growl with hunger. We search through the trash, hoping to find some food.
We have not long to look before a heavy artillery barrage is turned on us. The shells hit the trees, explode; the woodland shrieks with steel fragments.
I dive into a foxhole. This is a job for our big guns. We can do nothing until the fire lifts.
I am sitting with my helmeted head between my knees when a body tumbles into the pit. It is Horse-Face. His face is ash gray; his smile is feeble.
“So they’ve got you scared at last?” I say.
“Got a drink of water?”
I hand him my canteen, but it slips through his fingers.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I ask.
“Think I strained my back.”
He slumps forward. I rip off his shirt. It is a small, ugly wound just under his left shoulder blade; and it does not bleed much.
“Nothing but a scratch,” Horse-Face insists. “A goddamned silly scratch.”
“Scratch, hell. Take it easy while I go get a medic.”
“No. Keep down,” he urges. “You wouldn’t get two yards. Shells are thicker’n whores at an Elks convention.”
His eyes grow cloudy.
“Oh, God,” I think. “Not Horse-Face.”
When he speaks again, blood bubbles from the corner of his mouth. “If I get any mail from South Carolina, burn it, Murph,” he says. “Might be forwarded to the wife. Damned army efficiency at the wrong time.”
He forces a grin; and for the moment the shadows go from his eyes. “Expecting a letter from an old girl who lives in Charleston. Comes up to me at a company dance and says, ‘Hello, general, how’re things lookin’.’ Say, ‘Looks like war.’ Says–says … Don’t remember what she says. Brunette. Got some water?”
I scramble from the hole and run through the thundering forest, shouting for a medic.
“Over here.”
I find him crouching in a dugout.
“A man’s hurt bad. Hurry!”
“Have you gone nuts? We can’t get through.”
“The man’s dying.”
“Then what can I do?”
“Come on,” I say slowly. “Or so help me, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
The distance is short. But when we reach the spot, Private Abraham Homer Johnson, otherwise known as Horse-Face, is dead.
The medic studies the wound and shakes his head. “The fragment probably nicked his heart. I couldn’t have helped at all. Nobody could.”
I close my eyes. A roar surges through my brain, muffling the scream of the shells.
Knowed an old boy in the army once. Named Horse-Face.
“He was a pal?”
“We’d been together since North Africa.”
Biggest liar in the whole division. Says, “Met an old girl who owned a pet seal up in the state of Michigan.”
“Jesus,” says the medic, “that’s too bad. I lost a buddy on Anzio. Was he married?”
“Yeah. He was married.”
“Named Dolly Christine.” The girl? “No, the seal. Goes onk, onk every time I make a pass at her.” Pass at the seal? “No, the girl.”
“Any kids?”
“No kids.”
“Throwed her fish to keep her quiet.” The girl? “No. Dolly Christine. Spent fourteen dollars and sixteen cents on sliced mackerel. Biggest mistake I ever made.”
“Must’ve been a good joe.”
“Yeah. He was all right.”
“Seal falls in love with me. Woman gives me the go-by. Blows with a first lieutenant. Air corps. And I take off for parts unknown to fight for the likes of her.”
“Well, that’s war for you.”
“Yeah.”
In a little while the shelling lifts. We climb out of our holes, regroup, and plod toward a flaming town.
Early that evening we are again hit by artillery fire and are ordered to take cover until dawn. Brandon and I bed down in a deep foxhole which lies beneath the limbs of a solitary tree.
“Old Horse-Face won’t have to get up in the morning,” says Brandon.
“No. He can sleep from now on. And I just hope a burial squad don’t find us here. I’m so dead, they might shovel us under by mistake.”
“I wouldn’t mind much.”
“No. I wouldn’t either.”
I wrap up in a blanket and shut my eyes, but my mind will not let the body sleep. The earth quivers gently with bursting shells, and the sky is light with the glare of burning buildings. I smell the raw earth in which we lie and think of tomorrow.
“Are you asleep, Murph?”
“No, I can’t relax.”
“I’ve been lying here studying how much longer we’ve got.”
“It doesn’t matter. Tomorrow … the next day … next month … next year. What’s the difference?”
“I’d sort of like to get home once more. Lot of things I’d like to straighten up before I check out. But I guess things can take care of themselves.”
“Yeah. Everything’ll work out all right.”
“Until today, I thought maybe there was a chance of gett
ing through alive. But when Horse-Face got it, I gave up. That guy wasn’t born to die like that. He was one fellow the war didn’t break.”
“No. He wasn’t the breaking kind. He’s probably got the devil cornered with a yarn right now.”
“Yeah,” snickers Brandon. “Met an old girl once just inside. the gates of hell. Prostitute who forgot to reform.”
I take the cue. “Says, ‘What’s the big sweat about, general?’”
“Say, ‘Still got on my long-johns, lady. Come from a cold climate.’”
“Says, ‘We got a c-o-a-l climate here, general. Just waiting for John L. to arrive and pull off a strike that’ll top the devil himself.’”
“Say, ‘Haw! Haw! Sounds like a hell of a strike.’”
We both laugh heartily and feel better for it. But at this moment the grave seems merely an open door that divides us from our comrades.
A runner stops at the edge of our hole.
“Murphy.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re wanted at the C.P.”
“For godsake, what for?”
“How should I know. I’m just the Western Union boy with the singing greetings. You’d better get going.”
“Probably want to give you a furlough,” says Brandon.
“More likely a short arm. Any message you want to send to the colonel?”
“Tell him I’ve come around to Roosevelt’s viewpoint. I hate wah.”
“We all hate wah.”
“But we got wah.”
To reach the command post, I have to pass through an area that is under heavy bombardment. As I hurry, cursing and crouching, over the exploding earth, I wonder why I am so urgently needed at headquarters.
I find the command post in a shattered barn. And I detect the odor of whisky mingled with the fumes of manure. The lieutenant on duty greets me with a thick, uncertain voice.
“Sergeant,” he mumbles.
“Yessir.”
“Take out a patrol.”
“A patrol?”
“Yes, goddammit. You know what a patrol is?”
“Yessir.”
“Well, get going.”
“Where am I to take the patrol?”
“What?” he asks irritably. “Where do you usually take patrols? Get you some men and find the krauts.”
“But I don’t know this terrain. Wouldn’t it be foolish to risk the men?”
“What!”
I make no reply.
“Sergeant, did you hear me?”
“Yessir.”
“Then get moving; and keep on moving until you hit the krauts.”
“Then what?”
“Then what?” he repeats sarcastically. “Now, by god, that’s a fine question. Do you want to get busted?”
“I don’t give a damn.”
“What!”
Again I do not answer.
“Sergeant! You’ve got your orders. Now get going, and report back to me before daylight.”
“Yessir.”
Realizing that he is blind drunk, I return to my hole and ignore the order. If he remembers tomorrow, I may well find myself in trouble for refusing to obey him. But tomorrow can take care of itself.
Before turning in, I decide to make a final check of the platoon’s posts. The sound of heavy snoring comes from the earth as exhausted men snatch a few hours of sleep.
I find a tank track and walk in it across the field. The weight of the heavy vehicle would have exploded mines had they been buried along its trail. In the dim light, I pause before a depression. It is a partially filled foxhole with a curious object thrust upward through the dirt. The shape is extremely familiar. But my tired brain refuses to identify it. Carefully I grasp the thing. Then realization dawns. It is a boot; and inside it is the foot of a man. The flesh is still warm.
Yelling for help, I start clawing up the dirt with my hands. Two men are unearthed. One is already dead. The other, struggling horribly for breath, is unconscious when the medics carry him away.
What happened is obvious. Not even the noise of the tank awoke the men as it passed overhead, caved in the sides of the hole, and rolled on.
By dawn the artillery barrage has shifted to our area. We dare not stir. During the night some rations have been distributed. Brandon and I have a single can of beans between us. As we sit dipping our spoons by turns into the tin, a shell hits nearby. Dirt showers over us. We are unharmed, but the bean can which Brandon still holds carefully in his hand is filled to the brim. We remove the dirt and resume our breakfast.
Daylight reveals that the tree above us is filled with ripe cherries. We are thinking of risking our lives for the fruit when Brandon gets a bright idea. He lies on his back and with bursts from his tommy gun clips off branches of the tree. They fall into our hole; and we eat.
Between strongpoints the German retreat develops into practically a rout. We march up a highway in columns with small patrols scouting ahead on either side to protect our flanks against surprise.
We are rounding a curve when five planes dive at us. They strafe and bomb our ranks fiercely. We spurt for cover, leaping the soft shoulders of the road to avoid possible mines. When the planes pull out of their dives we see on their wings the white stars that mark them as our own. The error of the flyers has cost us over a hundred casualties. The highway is strewn with the dead and wounded.
Exasperated beyond speech, the unharmed men stare blankly at the destruction. Occasionally one gets control of his tongue and sputters a volley of oaths against the air corps.
While waiting for the reorganization of our ranks, I stumble upon a German ration dump. I open a can of rice and thick, yellow chicken gravy. Then I call to my men; and we eat until our stomachs complain.
As we approach Rome, the enemy rear guard stiffens its defense. Our route is punctuated by merciless fire fights. Once the Germans force a captured lieutenant and sergeant to sit on the front of a tank that rumbles toward us. Evidently they do not believe that we will fire at our own men, but that is their mistake. Our commanding officer faces the facts without sentiment and quickly makes his decision. The order is given. The guns blast away. The sergeant leaps from the tank; the lieutenant topples off dead. But the shell that kills him stops the tank. Our advance continues.
13
ROME is but another objective on an endless road called war. During the bitter months on Anzio, we dreamed of a triumphal entry into the great city. There were plans, promises, and threats of wholesale drinking and fornication. Now that our dream is an actuality, a vast indifference seizes us. Pitching our tents in a public park, we sleep until our brains grow soggy and life oozes back into our spirits.
Snuffy is the first to recover. He sneaks out of camp and returns laden with bottles of wine, which he buries in a hole beneath his blanket. He is so fearful of growing sober that he even awakes at odd hours of the night to pull at the bottles.
When he has become thoroughly drunk, he is hit by religious fervor. In a tearful and wailing voice, he confesses his unworthiness to live, and rants of the mercy of God. In dead earnestness, he turns upon Kerrigan, begging him to repent and give up his sinful ways. Kerrigan tolerates the advice for a while before planting a very solid boot in the seat of Snuffy’s pants.
“When you’re drunk, let religion alone,” says the Irishman quietly.
“The wrath of the Lord will be visited upon you,” shouts Snuffy. “He has taken you from the Valley of Death and delivered you from evil.”
“Ah shut up.”
“Why don’t you let him alone? A little religion wouldn’t harm any of us,” says Marsh, a newcomer who joined us somewhere along the road from Anzio.
“Keep out of this unless you want to get hurt,” Kerrigan advises. “Come on, Snuffy, let’s hit the sack.”
“I will not,” cries Snuffy. “I will not sleep until you are saved. Repent before it’s too late and you find yourself in the far and brimstone of hell, gnashin’ your teeth and cryin’ for water. Repent
.”
“I repent that I’ve waited so long to do this,” says Kerrigan grimly as he taps him on the jaw with his fist. Snuffy folds up. We drag him to his tent, remove his clothes, and cover him with a blanket. It is two days before he can bear the sight of wine again.
We prowl through Rome like ghosts, finding no satisfaction in anything we see or do. I feel like a man briefly reprieved from death; and there is no joy within me. We can have no hope until the war is ended. Thinking of the men on the fighting fronts, I grow lonely on the streets of Rome.
As the battle lines crawl northward, the rear echelons pour into town; our attitude toward them is irrational. With the smell of mud and death still in our nostrils, we resent the pressed uniforms and gaiety of men who have spent the war in relatively safe areas.
One afternoon we are sitting in a café when a group of air corps men enter. Kerrigan, who has been drinking wine since morning, is in a foul mood. Brandon chain-smokes, drums his fingers upon the table, and hums abstractedly. Snuffy, as usual, is asleep. He has no memory of Kerrigan’s slugging him and cannot explain the soreness of his jaw.
Two members of the air corps group are boisterously drunk. Seeing our combat infantry insignia, they come to our table and offer to buy a round of wine.
“Keep your money,” says Kerrigan, “and buy yourself some medals.”
His sarcasm does not register. “Good old infantry,” says one of the weaving airmen. “I got a buddy in the infantry. Souse Pacific. I got respect for the infantry.”
“Is that so?” snaps Kerrigan.
“You’re goddamned right. Air corps is all right. But give me the infantry any day.”
“You can have it,” says Snuffy, awakened by the conversation.
“Say,” continues the airman, “you ever kill a man?”
“Thousands of them,” replies Kerrigan. “All in the air corps.”
“How’s it feel to kill a man?” He crooks his arms as if he were sweeping the room with a tommy gun. “Rat-tat-tat-tat. I’d like to kill just one German.”
“Go back to your pals,” says Kerrigan. “Get the hell away from us before you fall and hurt yourself.”